Doylestown's Ceramic Animal making waves worldwide

Wednesday

Feb 14, 2018 at 3:30 PMFeb 14, 2018 at 3:34 PM

The modern psychedelic indie-rock band, which features three brothers who are Central Bucks West graduates, will headline World Cafe Live Saturday night before making its debut at the prestigious South by Southwest festival next month.

Andy Vineberg @ADVineberg

Not so long ago, three brothers from Doylestown spent their weekends playing cover songs in bars around Bucks County.

Now, they’ve got a devoted fan base in Mexico City and other faraway locales.

Warren, 25, is the younger brother of Erik “Rik Bus” Regan, 32, and Elliott “L Train” Regan, 27. Together, the three Central Bucks West graduates, along with Council Rock North graduate Dallas Hosey, are Ceramic Animal, a modern psychedelic indie-rock band with Spotify listeners in more than 60 countries.

The band’s 2016 debut album, “The Cart,” has over 1.4 million streams on Spotify. Their recent success will continue Saturday with their biggest Philly show to date — a headlining gig downstairs at World Café Live, followed next month by their debut at the prestigious South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

“We’re really stoked about that,” Erik Regan said. “We accepted on a Wednesday, and that Thursday we were their featured artist of the day on social media, out of a thousand acts.”

The brothers didn’t necessarily have grand aspirations when they started playing music together. With Warren on guitar and vocals, Elliott on keyboards and vocals and Erik on drums, plus original bassist Walker Gall, they were content to perform classic rock from the likes of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix, while working in some more modern material.

“We’d play like three-, four-hour sets and kind of grind it out, and that was great, it helped us get our chops up and learn how to play live,” Erik said. “People started asking us if we have any original stuff and we started working on that and it’s kind of just, here we are.”

Ceramic Animal became a fully original band about two years ago and released “The Cart” shortly after.

“At that point, we still weren’t diving in, we were still half and half,” Warren said of the band’s commitment to making music full-time. “But we were excited to get out and see what happened with (the album), and it kind of took off on Spotify a couple months after it was released. That was pretty cool, honestly.”

Suddenly, thanks to showing up on Spotify’s hand-curated modern psychedelia playlist and, just recently, on a playlist geared toward Spanish-speaking listeners, the band’s trippy rock was being streamed throughout the world. The data showed they were popular in Los Angeles, leading to a two-show “tour” to LA and San Francisco last fall.

“The show in LA was an all-ages show, and there was a kid, 11 or 12 years old, who brought a guitar and had the whole band sign it,” Erik said. “That was pretty sweet. They were really affectionate out there for us. It was great.”

When a fan in Milwaukee named Zeke found out the band had no shows planned in the Midwest, he and his girlfriend drove about 900 miles to see them at Johnny Brenda’s in Philly.

Onstage, the band is known for sporting matching red suits (a tradition that started with a New Year’s Eve show at Puck) and delivering energetic versions of soulful original material such as “Dreams Via Memories” from “The Cart” and new single “So Familiar” from their upcoming second album.

Don’t expect any brotherly drama. While plenty of bands with siblings have been derailed by tensions through the years, the Regan brothers, whose parents, Dan and Melissa, still live in Doylestown, have been able to use the family bond to their advantage.

“I think we all get along really well, and that’s allowed us to do what we’re doing now,” said Warren, the band’s primary songwriter. “The brother dynamic is unlike anything else — I think we can be extremely real with each other in terms of writing songs or coming up with melodies or ideas for the band, without worrying about hurting each other’s feelings.”

Added Erik: “We can get over things quick, which is great. Just being around each other a lot, constantly feeling like a band, talking about the music and planning our next move and having time together to do that is really important. We're never stewing over a disagreement. The fact that we can argue with each other and have it out and still go to Mom’s for Sunday night dinner is really valuable.”

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